With financial backing from the likes of Michael Dell and other venture capitalists, open source upstart Nginx has edged out Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server) to hold the title of second-most widely used Web server among all active websites. What's more, according to Netcraft's January 2012 Web Server Survey, Nginx over the past month has gained market share among all websites, whereas competitors Apache, Microsoft, and Google each lost share.

I've always looked for webhosting deals at webhostingtalk.com . It's the biggest forum on the topic (at least it was a few years back, I dont really follow this market much). I used this forum to get good deals on my first shared account, the dedicated box I used to get from LayeredTech and all my VPSes. Go to the "Advertising Forums" section and you'll find offers that are much better than those shown on hosting companies' websites.

I've been using cheapvps.co.uk for the past 3 years or so and I'm moderately satisfied - support is slow, but I didn't need them much. Their last offer (http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1089498&highlight=ch...) gets you 512 MB Ram / 16GB disk space for 7 GBP (11 USD). It's in UK, but I'm sure you'll find similar and cheaper offers in the US.

$11 is close enough to nothing to never consider getting a shared hosting account, won't you agree?